Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
18 Comments
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Just another new tax on real estate coming to us from Chicago designed to steal property, assets, to be distributed to the free stuff army of Illinois. There are a lot of voters in that army and for all you know it might just be legislated or ordered by the Governor.
A reasonable landlord may allow one month rent deferred to be paid in installments over the rest of the year or a partial payment now and their remainder deferred. If they dont like that deal then evict them as soon as this event is over. Of course Cook County wont allow a reduction in property taxes because lazy county workers need a paycheck to stay home and do nothing.
Will there be any property tax relief? I don’t mind helping out cutting my rent a little to help the tenants but I need a reduction in tax’s. Tax bills here in Rockford will probably be mailed out a little later but with no reductions. Remember all the school districts have multi year contracts with raises year after year and little if any increases in health care costs. Does anyone know if in the contracts are there any provisions to rework these contracts like suspend annual increases for emergency situations like this? We taxpayers are asked to sacrifice and pitch… Read more »
If you want property tax relief then leave Illinois & move to Indiana.
Otherwise get ready to move into the homeless shelter.
I have relatives in Colorado but home values are sky high but tax’s are 0.6% of total value. My wife has relatives in Missouri so that’s a definite NO! My friend bought a home outside Phoenix low tax’s around 0.8% nice in winter but very hot in summer. Indiana sounds good but not sure which part. P.S. Have you ever been in Frankenmuth,MI? Great place to visit but not to live. Wonderful food especially the chicken.
I think these renters are hoping for rent exemptions, not rent deferrals. You need a lot of upstream exemptions to accomplish that.
What they want is free apartments, free healthcare, transportation, food, utilities, internet, phone, Netflix, education, clothing, plus a guaranteed minimum income. They see all this free stuff as the bare minimum, as their basic fundamental human rights
The tenants who live from month to month without savings are right to be scared. Some landlords may have enough cushion to continue paying the taxes and the insurance and the utilities and the maintenance for a period of time. Meanwhile, properties that don’t yield rent will fall in value — perhaps not enough to help with real estate taxes — and the economic crisis will be magnified. It’s a lot like the pension crisis … but a mirror image. No doubt the public employee unions will support the rent strike. Acts of God permit the one who owes money… Read more »
The perverse incentive of the rent strike is that it will lead to the implosion of the local commercial mortgage market, which leads to mass foreclosures, and the eventual fire sale of rental properties by court order. The new landlords, who buy the property out of foreclosure, have lower fixed costs, and thus, can charge less rent to tenants. So the tenants get free rent today and cheaper rent in the future. Sure, their next landlord will be Blackrock, instead of the local pensioner with investment properties (cops and firefighters in Chicago are MAJOR properties owners of multi-unit buildings).
In a better world, there would only be temporary relief to those who lost their jobs AND used up their savings. However, that would be virtually impossible to police. If someone is young and mobile the incentive will be to stop paying rent and invest the money for a rainier day or to buy a better car. The rush to get money into the system or provide “temporary” relief is going to result in a lot of wealth transfer to those who don’t really need it. It reminds me of those who qualify for low cost housing while they are… Read more »
What I saw in Peoria over the last decade was that an increasing number of older houses landed on the market due to the owners dying off. Selling became more or less impossible with prices declining. So to keep these older houses occupied, the rents were low. No maintenance was done for the last 15 years under the current owners and little to none was done in the 20-30 years under the previous ones. So when it gets to the point of roof leaks, the wood will eventually rot. If termites get in, well we know how much of a… Read more »
This, I believe, describes a lot of Illinois. The loss of population and changing residential habits is doing major damage to the existing housing stock. In hot markets and desirable cities with growing population, these older home would be snapped up, renovated, and put back on the market. Places like Colorado, Texas, Nevada, etc, the housing market (was before coronavirus) was hot and homes sold quickly as new residents moved in a current residents moved up. Texas is so hot now that the exurbs keep expanding in cities in their own right. Compare this to Lake County Illinois. I was… Read more »